A brilliant, moving, poignant collection of stories, from the author of Cross Channel and The Lemon Table

The stories in Julian Barnes' long-awaited third collection are attuned to rhythms and currents: of the body, of love and sex, illness and death, connections and conversations. A divorcee falls in love with a mysterious European waitress; a widower relives a favourite holiday; two writers rehearse familiar arguments; a couple bond, fall out and bond again over flowers and vegetable patches. And at a series of evenings at 'Phil & Joanna's', the topics of conversation range from the environment to the Britishness of marmalade, from toilet graffiti to smoking, as we witness the guests' lives in flux.

Ranging from the domestic to the extraordinary, from the vineyards of Italy to the English seaside in winter, the stories in Pulse resonate and spark.

Julian Barnes writes so exquisitely that every page of this collection contains literary pearls
Mail on Sunday

All the stories in Pulse have the absolute completeness and density of the very best short fiction
New Statesman

Masterclasses in the form, full of the sidelong wit and intelligence that make the writer one of our most consistently deft short-form stylists
Daily Telegraph

Barnes' stylish prose, eye for emotional detail and sense of absurdity never let him down... He suits the short story very well
Literary Review

The prose is crisp and elegant, light on its feet but resonant with pathos, and flecked with acute observations that never fail to strike a vivid chord with the reader.... It all makes for a diverse, entertaining collection, alternating between plangency and playfulness
Sebastian Shakespeare, Tatler

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ABOUTthe author

Julian Barnes is the author of eleven novels, including The Sense of an Ending, which won the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. He has also written three books of short stories, Cross Channel, The Lemon ...